


There would have been a time for such a word

by crackinthecup



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, implied russingon, or rather the aftermath of the Nirnaeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3421748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/pseuds/crackinthecup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Wakefulness caught him off guard, and he sat up in bed, shivering, clammy with sweat; the present not quite filtering in." Maedhros returned from the peaks of Thangorodrim broken and scarred. The losses sustained in the Nirnaeth, and one of them in particular, have compounded the wounds he bears on the inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There would have been a time for such a word

**Author's Note:**

> Title lifted from Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, so all credit goes to Shakespeare for that one.

That night the world heaved and swirled beneath him, alive with pain and strong, sun-browned arms. The beat of wind—or was it their cackles, so constant, so grating? There he was again, dwindled to strips of burning flesh, the stench of charred skin as the brand slotted out and in again, over his chest. 

A slap to the face; the crack of vertebrae jolting him into the dizzy, crepuscular awareness just before black-out. 

“They all break the same.” That voice, though it was not addressed to him. He heard the sneer cracking through it, disgust and disappointment and boredom. 

“A pity, my lord.” 

His wrists screamed at him as he sagged in his chains, but their voices were hoarse, almost inaudible; numb. He rocked forward, tottering, when Gorthaur slammed his entire length into him. It was easier somehow, easier than all the other times; it must have been the blood. 

* * *

Wakefulness caught him off guard, and he sat up in bed, shivering, clammy with sweat; the present not quite filtering in. He shifted, scooting across the crumpled sheets to the other side of the bed, reflexively seeking Fingon’s warmth.

There was no one there to hold him. 

* * *

It was much, much later that Maglor found him. Hours it had been since he had slipped from the shoddy tent and drifted into the knot of trees girding their camp. He sat huddled on a flat boulder, and a light dusting of snow made him flicker out of view, a silent ghost in a silent landscape. The air was heavy but cold, packed with uncertain snowflakes; a gray drooping canopy punctured by trees as grim and straight as needles.

The empty bed had alarmed them. His empty eyes had chilled them to the bone. Maglor alone had lingered by the flap of the tent, chafing his stiff hands, trying not to feel. And now from afar he thought he saw the tiny jerk of his brother’s shoulders, a half-formed shiver, and his faint, scattered thoughts were shoved into the certainty of a decision. 

He approached gingerly. Maedhros did not look up. The boulder was too small for two, so Maglor lowered himself into a dropped kneel by his brother’s legs. Silence stuttered by, and the horror of the past few weeks came howling in its wake. The heaps of fallen soldiers, Elves and Men and Dwarves, all nameless in the charnel of broken, bloodied limbs. The screams and the fire. And then the news cringing like a dying thing at their feet. The silence built of dread and voices gagged with tears. They had all stared at Maedhros; they had all seen him shatter. Maglor had been there, holding him through his sobs, whispering lovely, senseless things. Whether it had been hours or days, none could tell. And then, miraculously, beyond hope or dream, Maedhros had stood up. Dry-eyed and empty, with a curse in his glance. 

“Are you cold?” Maglor ventured, now, unnecessarily. The words drifted to the ground like the snowflakes around them, soft and unheeded. 

Maedhros shifted slightly; a stilted movement. But he remained silent. His lips had a worrisome blue tinge to them, and puffs of breath condensed into white wreaths of vapor before him. Maglor could hear the air rattling in his lings with each inhalation. 

Maedhros shivered again, more violently. Uncertainty coalesced into protectiveness, and Maglor hoisted himself out of the snow and the uselessness. He slung an arm over his brother’s shoulders. “Come on,” he coaxed, he pleaded. “Come, Nelyo.” 

Maedhros unspooled like yarn, and Maglor’s arm round him knitted him back together, clumsy and insufficient. As they trudged back to the tent, Maedhros wondered, absurdly; he caught the words all feeble and untruthful in his mind— _I am fine._

“You will be, Nelyo,” Maglor assured, automatically, registering his brother’s thoughts like the loop of a song dim in his mind. “You will be,” like the prayer of an infidel, tasting the lie on his own tongue. 

A moment rocked between them; and then it capsized. Maedhros’ left hand darted out to curl with bony urgency round Maglor’s wrist. 

“Why?” he croaked, and Maglor felt his insides turn to icy slush; wanted, _needed_ , to pretend not to have heard. “Why him?” Maedhros asked of him, and of the blanketed sky. His voice was quiet, but Maglor recognized the tiny quaver in it— 

_(Sleepless nights when hope rotted dead and unmourned, and he sat in vigil by a carcass, a mutilated travesty wrought by the whims of fey lords. The scars and the words spat out each night that ripped them open anew, on the inside. The bright, unhinged gleam in distant eyes.)_

It presaged entropy that caved in upon itself, spiraling into hysteria, into the nightmare of leering shadows where he could not follow. So the grip of his arm round his brother’s waist, though still gentle, still tender and careful, grew more firm, and his footsteps quickened. Maedhros whimpered beside him, and _we’re almost there_ blossomed on his lips, bright and ineffectual, as though it could truly make a difference; he could not bring himself to say it. 

After the gnawing chill outside, the warmth of the tent seemed heavy and cloying. Caranthir was viciously stabbing a rectangular piece cloth with an embroidery needle in the corner, while Celegorm paced, up and down, up and down, restless and maddening. Curufin and Amrod were nowhere to be seen. 

Celegorm spun on his heel, and he seemed fey, with pale hair wild about his shoulders and candlelight flickering across his features in crimson, glistening stains. The caged hunter become feral. 

But he stopped mid-stride when his eyes fell on Maedhros, and the savage frown knotting his brows smoothed out into wary concern. “What—” he began, too loudly in the brittle silence. 

“Let’s get him warm,” Maglor said quickly, cutting across him. 

They sat Maedhros down on his bed and swaddled him in blankets. Maglor perched beside him. Celegorm muttered something about finding the others, and bounded off, strangely relieved. Caranthir sat still in his corner, dark and silent and now, finally, motionless. 

Maglor shifted with a rustle of sheets. He laid a gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Let’s get you something to eat, hmm?” 

“Why him, Káno?” Maedhros blubbered, unexpectedly, in a voice hollow and thin. He looked up then, he sought his brother’s gaze, and at the despair Maglor found there, the ache and the grief and the miserable helplessness, he quailed and faltered. His throat felt tight, too tight, and words could not wriggle out unless they were ripped out of flesh and bone and spilled in the warm messiness of blood. 

“Why him and not me?” Maedhros murmured as a sob hitched in his throat. And though he acknowledged it not himself, though he gorged its grave with grief and loneliness and trod the mere whisper of it into the deepest, blackest depths of his mind, longing strained within him too, wrong and potent enough to gut. Why should Fingon die, while he lived still, in misery and ruin and the barren wasteland of his existence? Why did he have to go on? 

“Nelyo …” Maglor tried to soothe, but his voice cracked, and his lies crumbled like ash on his tongue. He moved to embrace his brother, to cradle him to his chest, and Maedhros crumpled against him, limp as a rag doll. His remaining hand clawed furrows in Maglor’s tunic. His eyes stung with a torrent of tears, and he nuzzled his face against his brother, he smeared the wetness on his cheeks into Maglor’s shoulder. 

There was nothing more to say.


End file.
